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We're on our way back from spending Thanksgiving in New Orleans, which is due for a longer post…later.

But this post is on the magic of road trips.

First of all, we know we are incredibly lucky. Beatrix is an awesome traveller, especially on road trips. In her life, we have driven to New Orleans twice and the East Coast twice, plus numerous smaller trips. We load up the car, we put some good snacks in the back seat, Patrick drives, I navigate, and we get there. We talk the whole way. Beatrix does have iPad time, but she also plays, and reads maps, and talks to us, and complains about our proclivity towards NPR, and it's great.

We're pretty good at scoring hotel deals. Holiday Inns (and the nearly-indistinguishable Holiday Inn Express) are Priceline favorites; Drury Inns, on the other hand, have free dinner (including a full free bar) and big breakfast buffets. We swim, we jump on the beds (shhh), we have great breakfast buffets with eggs and grits. The other night I had a …

My friend Lindsi sent me a link to try Rocksbox for free for a month — it's basically a jewelry rental place that sends you curated (?) boxes of jewelry that you can try out, return if you want to exchange, but if you like it. Each box comes with 3 pieces designed to be worn together, and since I don't wear rings, mine has a bracelet, earrings, and necklace.

It's kind of fun to get the boxes, because they are super cute:

At first I was not bowled away by any of the pieces, but I liked stretching my usual, rather conservative, jewelry choices. Patrick has especially liked me wearing bigger earrings.
I really liked the statement necklace they just sent, and I have gotten a lot of compliments on it. But, even at the "member discounted" rate of $40, it's more than I could justify spending right now.
So yesterday, I had some Herberger's coupons, and managed this knock-off basically for free (I had …

(I hadn't originally planned a post on frugality on the day after the election. But it just came out this morning. Hmmm….)

The other thing that has been making me happy lately is re-using things. The other day my awesome friend Sarah gave us several bags of her daughter's hand-me-downs, and Beatrix looks awesome right now in a new-to-her outfit. Last night, I hung "new" curtains in the guest room, also passed down, that make it look 100x more polished an put together.

I have also become part of several neighborhood Buy/Sell/Trade boards on Facebook (including starting one in our neighborhood, which you should join if that's where you live!) Through those boards, I have managed to sell many things I no longer need, like a one piece at a time garage sale. It amazes me the things that people are crazy about, and the ones they pass up. But my "magic milk box" usually yields a few dollars a day when I put things out for people to pick up, and it adds up fast…

I'm feeling intensely grateful today. For a hot minute I thought about doing a post-a-day kind of thing in November to highlight all the things I am grateful about, but who am I kidding that I would keep that schedule up. So here, in no particular order, are just a few things I am grateful for:

- My friend Tracy, who offered to carpool to ballet yesterday. We brought her daughter there, and then she brought Beatrix home, but not before taking her out to Bread & Chocolate for a treat. Beatrix now things that Tracy is the best mom in the world, but hey, she is probably right. And thanks to that carpooling, I for several small paint touch-up projects completed.

- Soup. My friends Erica and Joe host a Soup Swap every year. Everyone brings six quarts of soup, and collects and trades with others. So now our freezer is full of delicious soup. Honestly, anything that can make dinner less of a chore in our household is welcome (and even more so to Patrick the usual chef).